How Wild Is October for S&P 500 Index?
October: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks – Mark Twain
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How Wild Is October for S&P 500 Index ?
Lets define wildness , by looking at the monthly range , calculated as ( high-low)*100/average(high:low) , nothing but range% of the month .
Below the table with average range % for each month since 1950 , No wonder October ranks first
let’s do , further research , by looking at each calendar year, and see which month posted the highest monthly range for that year .
#FYI- the highest monthly range for the year 2013 , as of now stands at 6.48% , recorded in the May-2013.
below the table with the details of each month and the number of times it recorded the highest monthly range for a year.
| Month | # high range for the year |
| Jan | 6 |
| Feb | 2 |
| Mar | 7 |
| Apr | 2 |
| May | 8 |
| Jun | 2 |
| Jul | 3 |
| Aug | 6 |
| Sep | 6 |
| Oct | 12 |
| Nov | 6 |
| Dec | 2 |
That October recorded the highest monthly average for 12 year out of the last 62 years , tells how wild October was in the past .
Below the details October Months, when it recorded the highest monthly range of the year
| Date | Open | High | Low | Close | Range % | Change % |
| Oct-11 | 1131.21 | 1292.66 | 1074.77 | 1253.3 | 18.41 | 10.77 |
| Oct-08 | 1164.17 | 1167.03 | 839.8 | 968.75 | 32.61 | -16.94 |
| Oct-99 | 1282.71 | 1373.17 | 1233.7 | 1362.93 | 10.70 | 6.25 |
| Oct-98 | 1017.01 | 1103.78 | 923.32 | 1098.67 | 17.80 | 8.03 |
| Oct-97 | 947.28 | 983.12 | 855.27 | 914.62 | 13.91 | -3.45 |
| Oct-92 | 417.8 | 421.16 | 396.8 | 418.68 | 5.96 | 0.21 |
| Oct-89 | 349.15 | 360.44 | 327.12 | 340.36 | 9.69 | -2.52 |
| Oct-87 | 321.83 | 328.94 | 216.46 | 251.79 | 41.25 | -21.76 |
| Oct-79 | 109.19 | 112.16 | 99.06 | 101.82 | 12.40 | -6.86 |
| Oct-78 | 102.54 | 106.23 | 91.65 | 93.15 | 14.74 | -9.16 |
| Oct-74 | 63.54 | 75.9 | 60.96 | 73.9 | 21.83 | 16.30 |
| Oct-57 | 42.76 | 43.14 | 38.98 | 41.06 | 10.13 | -3.21 |
Source: PastStat
ps: Oct-78, and Oct-79 had #shutdown
pps: just because October might print the highest range of the year doesn’t mean it could go down , there are two possibilities .
Oct-87 ( -21.76%) vs Oct-74 ( 16.3%)
or
Oct-08(- 16.94%) vs Oct-11 ( 10.77%)
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